Category Archives: NFL Defense

The New York Giants made some noise in the week prior to free agency when they acquired Los Angeles Rams linebacker Alec Ogletree and a 2019 7th round pick, for 4th and 6th round selections in the upcoming NFL Draft. The position was criminally overlooked through the Jerry Reese tenure and new general manager Dave…

For the Patriots, the 2017-2018 season ended very similarly to how it began. New England lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 42-27 to open the season, mainly due to Matt Patricia’s defense having no answers for how to stop Andy Reid’s offensive game plan. The same could be said for Sunday’s 41-33 Super Bowl loss…

From a wins and loss perspective, things have not been looking well for the Cleveland Browns this season. And with another loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4, the Browns find themselves in an all too familiar spot, sitting winless and looking for answers. In the last 10 seasons, the Browns have started 0-4…

Imagine the following scene… You are a rookie free safety facing your first ever snap of professional football. You are trying to impress in the preseason, and your defensive coordinator has called a staple coverage of the scheme: Cover 3. You are tasked with covering the deep middle third zone. You are shaded to the…

I was scrolling through Twitter one Monday night when I came across a retweet by the NFL Network announcing the ranking of Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Casey Hayward at number 64 for their NFL Top 100 campaign. When I clicked on the tweet, by my surprise I saw that Hayward led the league last year…

This millennium, the New England Patriots’ defense has consistently ranked better by points allowed than it has by yards allowed. For many of those seasons, the difference in its rankings has been notably large. Such disparities have led announcers, fans, and analysts alike to conclude that the Patriots employ a “bend but don’t break”-style defense…

A few weeks ago I introduced my latest project Contextualizing Sack Production, and explained how and why the endeavor could be useful in evaluating individual performance for edge pass rushers in the NFL. With the regular season over, I compiled the final results of the CSP and organized them to give you an idea how…

Before the Buffalo Bills were outgained by Le’Veon Bell and the Pittsburgh Steelers, they lost to the Oakland Raiders. Badly. The loss raised questions about where this team goes in the future, who was to blame for the loss, and what the biggest needs on this team are. One thing I noticed watching the game live and have…

The defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos have one of the most feared defenses in the entire NFL. With high caliber players at all three levels of the defense, their game plan for the last year and a half has been to rely on their defense to win games, and it has certainly worked. In…

All production is good and all sacks are good. I’m not here to debate that. From a team or fan perspective, an 8-second hustle sack is just as valuable as DeMarcus Ware bending the edge in a ridiculous show of athleticism. But while the box score stat has consistent value on the field, it can…

Now that we are over halfway finished with the 2016 NFL season, it is good time to look back at the first half of the year and see which rookies have excelled in their first taste of NFL action. We asked our team of writers and analysts to put together a team of rookies at each…

In the NFL, you don’t always know what to expect, even from returning players. Special play matters whenever it comes, and Justin Twell looks at a player that is giving the Chicago Bears more than they expected in Bryce Callahan. The Chicago Bears defense was a unit that was predicted to improve in 2016 with the free…

In his Sack Lunch series, Jon Ledyard looks at a particularly impressive pass-rushing performance from the past weekend’s games, highlighting techniques, moves, or athletic traits that brought each player success. In this installment, Jon looks at the traits and technique that led to outside linebacker and edge rusher Jeremiah Attaochu’s impressive sack of Drew Brees. Any football conversation about the…

In his Sack Lunch series, Jon Ledyard looks at a particularly impressive pass-rushing performance from the past weekend’s games, highlighting techniques, moves, or athletic traits that brought each player success. In this installment, Jon looks at the traits that make interior defensive lineman Mike Daniels special, focusing on a sack against the Minnesota Vikings. Green Bay Packers defensive lineman…

Stifling defenses come in different shapes and sizes, but they can be all be beaten. Matty Brown shows how the blitzing Arizona Cardinals defense has an exploitable weakness in the short pass game. The Arizona Cardinals are one of the most blitz-happy teams in the league, having sent five or more rushers on 45.1% of plays last season. The…

The New York Jets defensive line is an extremely talented unit, and many coaches would be satisfied having them pin their ears back and getting after the quarterback. That is not the type of coach New York has though. Jon Ledyard shows how Todd Bowles and the Jets defensive line were able to use stunts…